Nasdaq-100 to Cut Apple’s Index Share Nearly in Half

The Nasdaq stock exchange is rebalancing its Nasdaq-100 index in an effort to more accurately balance the companies that are on the list, which means Apple’s weighting will be reduced by nearly half. Currently, Apple’s stock value accounts for just over 20 percent of the index, but after the restructuring it will account for slightly over 12 percent, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The change for Apple puts the ratio for the company’s stock and outstanding shares more in line based on the way Nasdaq calculates the index. Thanks to the Mac, iPhone and iPad maker’s strong growth over the past few years, its stock ended up with more than twice the weight it should have.

Apple isn’t the only Nasdaq-100 company to be impacted by the change. 81 other companies are losing a little weight on the index, and a small handfull will gain slightly. Microsoft, for example, will climb from 3.4 percent up to 8.3 percent.

At 12.3 percent, Apple will still be the largest single component on the index. Oracle will climb to 6.7 percent, Intel will inch up to 4.2 percent, and Google will rise to 5.8 percent.

The change won’t rearrange the order of the stocks on the index, and it won’t cause any stocks to be dropped, either.

Nasdaq is announcing the reindexing today, but won’t put the changes into effect until May 2. “We wanted to make this very transparent,” commented Nasdaq executive vice president John Jacobs. “Everyone will see what we’re doing and everyone will have a month before we do this.”

Apple may be seeing the impact of the change already. In pre-market trading Tuesday morning the company’s stock was down from $341.19 at Monday’s closing to $337.00, down -4.19 (-1.23%).

This will be seen by AgendaBoy as another indication of the decline of Apple and the rise of Droid. Where is Google with its Droidful in this move?

b9bot1:18 AM EDT, Apr. 6th, 2011Guest

Why is Apple heavy and Google is not at $600.00 a share. Apple is a bigger company than Google. Apple’s price should be at $600.00 a share and Google at $300.00 a share to reflect the companies size. Why is Apple the only company being affected by this re-index.
It’s about as transparent as a plane CRASH!! in your back yard!!!
Apple has been falling more than $20.00 a share.
WHY?
All things point that Apple will have another record quarter and the iPad 2 is an even bigger hit (contrary to some Anal-ists) than the original.
I see no reason for this stock to be falling.